CHENNAI: Stage is set for the first election of the Indian Olympic Association on November 3. The Returning Officer — Sanjay K Srivastava — published 12 names as part of the nomination list on Thursday. Of the 12, six are male while the others are female. Olympic and world championships medallists are in the mix. Interestingly, according to the IOA's Athletes Commission rules, 10 (six male and six female) should be elected to the commission. That means only two names will be omitted. One good thing is that unlike last election, this time, there were no mass withdrawals as of now. The election is on November 3.
Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and former world championships silver medallist Kidambi Srikanth would be from badminton while Tajinderpal Singh Toor and Sudha Singh would be from athletics. There is one from canoeing and kayaking, Manjeet Singh, as well. Olympic medallist Harmanpreet Singh and Salima Tete too have filed their nominations. Others in fray are Tokyo Olympic medallist in weightlifting Mirabai Chanu, Bombayla Devi (archery), Sajan Prakash (swimming), CA Bhavani Devi (fencing) and Olympic medallist Swapnil Kushare (shooting). There is a likelihood that since Hockey is a team sport it may have two representatives.
And out of the 10 elected members, "six members (3 male, 3 female) shall be athletes who, at the time of election, have participated in at least one of the last three editions of the Olympic Games". The remaining four members shall comprise "two (2) male athletes and
two (2) female athletes, who, at the time of their election, have won at least one (1) medal in any of the last three (3) editions of the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championship/Cup or of the National Games".
It needs to be seen which of the two would sit out of commission. If one considers Rule 8.6, then ideally, all sports should get representation in the commission. The rule says that "as a guiding principle, an endeavour shall be made to ensure that there is not more than one Athlete from any one particular sport". In that case, there are two each from badminton, hockey and athletics. Over to the 34 names who are part of the electoral college. There is one dope offender and two representatives who hare 50 years old and above and not current athletes.
SOMs list may be altered
The Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit (SOMs) list might get updated too. As reported by this newspaper, there are more than five dope offenders in the list of SOMs and Athletes' Commission combined. There are names that do not figure in the Olympic programme as mandated in SOMs rules. There is a possibility that quite a few names would be dropped from the list. Apparently, the National Anti-doping Agency too has been consulted.
There are big names in the SOMs list like Abhinav Bindra, PT Usha who is the current IOA president, Gagan Narang (current vice president), Yogeshwar Dutt (IOA EC member), Vijender Singh, Saina Nehwal. The election of SOMs is on November 9.